Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is committed to the reduction of all forms of poverty, particularly, child poverty, as outlined in the programme for Government and the roadmap for social inclusion 2020 to 2025. Poverty is multidimensional and requires a whole-of-government approach. While income supports are important, access to affordable services such as housing, health, childcare and education are also critical.

Budget 2023 provided a social welfare package worth almost €2.2 billion, which included a range of measures to support children. In addition to the one-off measures paid last year, personal rates of payment on working age schemes have been increased by €12 per week. In addition, the rates of payment for a qualified child has been increased to €42 per week for a child under 12 and €50 per week for a child over 12. I have also significantly increased funding for the school meals programme in recent years. More than €94 million has been provided for school meals in 2023, which is up from approximately €68 million in 2022. These are in addition to other Government measures such as the reduction in childcare costs and the commitment to introduce a free school book scheme for primary school pupils from this autumn. I have just set out in the previous question the benefits that will follow on from changes arising from the work of the child maintenance review group.

The current national child poverty target requires a 66% reduction in the number of children in consistent poverty by the end of 2020 from its 2011 level. Between 2011 and 2021, the consistent poverty rate fell by 4.1 percentage points from 9.3% to 5.2%, so we can see that the measures taken to date have had a positive impact, although we still have further to go.

The roadmap for social inclusion commits us to setting a new child poverty target. My Department and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth are working together to progress this in the context of the development of a new policy framework for children and young people.

Finally I should mention that the Taoiseach is establishing a new child poverty and well-being unit in his Department. The aim of this new unit is to build on what has already been achieved and provide greater focus on improving the lives and well-being of all children in Ireland.

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